iPod Giveaway #2: Great iPods in History

Picked up by the New York Times, Toronto Star, San Jose Mercury News, Kottke.org, Gizmodo, Boing Boing, and Popular Mechanics among others, the first installment of the Mike Industries iPod-A-Month Creativity Competition was a bigger-than-expected hullaballoo. Thanks again to all who entered.

For the second installment, we’re going with a nostaglic theme: Great iPods in History. As is the case with all of these competitions, the person who suggested the theme will win one iPod Shuffle, and the person who wins the actual contest will take home the other (suggestion pool still open through the end of the year). Congratulations to “Getmeparu” for suggesting this contest… as soon as I figure out who you are, a Shuffle will be forthcoming.

As is illustrated by the slightly modified 1945 Alfred Eisenstadt photo to the left, the aim of this contest is to place an iPod Shuffle into notable historical context. You can modify famous photos, upload audio narratives, shoot video, or even design a mini-site. I expect most of the entries to be altered photos, which works well for this particular contest, but I just wanted to remind everyone that rules can always be broken. You are free to submit anything you like, as long as it’s yours and it was created specifically for this contest.

This contest, along with the remaining seven, will run for two weeks. The deadline for entries is midnight, May 31st.

Submission rules are as follows, and cannot be broken:

If you’re submitting an image, it must be exactly 418 pixels by 418 pixels. Use a standard <img src="yourimage.jpg" /> tag to enter it into the comments section below. Please also keep your filesizes reasonable (as small as possible, but definitely under 80k or so).

Please submit any audio, video, or website entries as a standard link.

Multiple entries are allowed.

Nothing overtly offensive or in otherwise poor taste please. Mike Industries is a family establishment.

UPDATE #2: Maybe the big red exclamation mark will help here — all images must be EXACTLY 418 pixels tall by 418 pixels wide. Not 418×200. Not 500×500. It is not a “maximum width”. 418×418 please. The management thanks you.

Creation: The Limericks
The Shuffle in Genesis:(Found in appocryphal early printing)
There was once a shuffler named God
Who thought beauty in darkness was odd;
How he made light is a myst’ry,
But that Shuffle survived hist’ry,
And comes to us now as iPod.

The Shuffle in Evolution:Etched on the back of a large black monolith in orbit around Jupiter
It was in an old film from Kubrick:
A black iPod established a rubric –
Mankind would grow hip,
Shuffle stones for a ship,
And go from dead monkey to lubric.

The Shuffle Around the World
The Shuffle in Heian Era JapanHaiku found in Murasaki Shikibu’s character notes
Ordered songs are stale;
Shuffled tunes are zen, unbound –
Genji has iPod.

The Shuffle in UkraineTraditional Ukrainian Folk Song, Translated
We are so poor
We have no money
We were great once
I want an iPod
But I cannot even afford food.
(ed. note: It sounds better in the original, you really need to hear the rhythm)

Shuffle in British Literature
Shakespeare’s Shuffle.(A Sonnet, discovered between the pages of the second folio, scribbled on a cod-piece wrapper)
When I do sit alone and write blank verse,
There are too many days when I cannot
Come up with words to rhyme, it is my curse –
Strive though I may no order comes from knots.
What knots, you ask? You think I used that word
Only to rhyme something to that “cannot”?
My friend, that is entirely absurd –
To end a line, for rhyming’s sake, with “knot?”
Alright, it’s true, I am a useless fraud,
And nothing that I ever write will work;
I cannot rhyme, not e’en for king or god,
Since I got this toy my life’s a
But with my shuffle writings matters not,
And random songs are better than no knot.
(Scholars debating whether or not to just sort of hush this one up)

Romantic ShuffleFound in an old collection of Byron’s letters
“…And that damned Keats, always walking around with that device. I know you respect his work, Shelley, but sometimes I wonder if by some contrivance that thing is…I don’t know, putting ideas into his head? I mean, good god man, you and I, we get our ideas the old fashioned way – we have rampant drunken debauched orgies and then write while overcome with guilt and shame the next day from our Catholic upbringings – but I swear I saw him listening to those little pieces he puts into his ears (the…earpieces? if you will…) and jotting down what he heard! It isn’t natural, I tell you…”

Modernist ShuffleFound in Finnegans Wake by James Joyce(honest!)
You here nort farwellens rouster? Ashiffle ashuffle the wayve
they.
From Dancingtree till Suttonstone There’s lads no lie would
filch a crown To mull their sack and brew their tay With wather
parted from the say.

Hi there,
This competition is a great idea and should generate loads of interest.
We run London’s Playlist club, and if anyone entering the competition would be happy for us to use the images you make as the main image on future Playlist Club flyers, please do let me know (jonny AT ipod-dj DOT com).

The thing about the z-boys is… you may see them and THINK ‘wow, they were way ahead of their time’ but the fact is… you will never really know… really understand… just how ahead of their time they really were… until time catches up with them…

hello,
my name is jessica thompson, im not here to give you a sob story about, how my parents are poor and can afford to buy me a ipod. you probly get thoes every day. so im basicaly asking, not begging, but wanting one. I understand that there are billions of these letters you get a day, so if i dont get a free ipod i understand.
thats all i have to say, keeping it short and sweet.
thank you, jessica thompson!

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